Chornobyl: new challenge to the world community (04/21/96)

Chornobyl: new challenge to the world community

Statement by Dr. Yuri Shcherbak, ambassador of Ukraine to the United States, delivered on April 9 at the Columbia University conference "Chornobyl: Ten Years After."

I am pleased and honored to be here with you this morning at the world-famous Columbia University at a forum that is so close and special to me, as an eyewitness of those sad events, at a conference commemorating the victims of the Chornobyl catastrophe and addressing the burning issues of how to deal with its drastic consequences.

By the totality of its consequences, the accident at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 is the largest modern disaster, a national calamity that touched upon the destinies of millions of people living on vast territories. This catastrophe has brought before the Soviet Union and the world community at large the necessity of solving new and extremely complex and comprehensive problems dealing practically with all spheres: the political and social system, the economy, industrial development and the state of science and technology, legal norms and laws, culture and morals.

In the chain of the worst technogenic disasters of the 20th century, Chornobyl occupies a special place. This is an absolutely new phenomenon of modern technical civilization that has a number of characteristics making it unprecedented.

The first peculiarity is the peaceful character of the catastrophe, if one could describe it that way.

No one planned a military operation under the code name "Chornobyl"; there was no subversion or sabotage. Chornobyl emerged as if out of nothing, anonymously; it was forecast by nobody. The catastrophe became possible due to the combination of a number of incidental factors in which, however, an ominous regularity can be seen.

This regularity can be described as the threat presented by the ever-growing complexity and unreliability of technical supersystems, and the concentration and centralization of huge energy, chemical, informational and biological capacities which can get out of control and pose a threat to mankind's sustainable development.

Chornobyl is an alarm signal sent to mankind from the future; it is a warning about the possible destruction of humankind and the environment as a result of the quite good intentions of technocrats. But, as we know, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Chornobyl was a hard blow to the technocratic philosophy of old optimistic rationalism. There is a world fraternity of technocrats propagating technological chauvinism and technological imperialism, that is, the idea of the supremacy of the technosphere over all other areas of human spiritual activity, such as people's morality, trust in God, intuitive insight and the ability to forecast possible consequences.

Chornobyl has shown that humankind's advances in technology can lead to deleterious dead ends.

The second peculiarity of Chornobyl is its global character. A catastrophe of this scale knows no boundaries, no political, social or national barriers.

The territory of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia contaminated by radiation exceeding 1 curie per square kilometer totals about 145,000 square kilometers with a population of 7 million. This area is equivalent to the territory of Belgium and Austria taken together. Other countries contaminated by Chornobyl include Poland, Finland, Georgia, Sweden, Norway, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Italy, Great Britain, Switzerland, Germany, Turkey, Greece and Yugoslavia.

Chornobyl has acutely raised the question of the necessity of international regulations and international cooperation in case of global disasters.

Chornobyl's third peculiarity is its destructive impact on the state, political and economic systems of the former Soviet Union. It was a stability and soundness test for all state mechanisms charged with quick decision-making on issues related to the security of millions of people and informing the population. The command and administrative one-party system of the former Soviet Union did not survive the Chornobyl test and completely lost its credibility among the people.

At the same time, we have to admit that under conditions of that authoritarian and centralized system, in order to overcome the results of the catastrophe, Soviet authorities managed to mobilize the existing human and material resources of this huge country and to draw upon the economic, military, police, science, technology and medical potential of the USSR to effect large-scale and unprecedented measures.

To overcome the catastrophe's consequences, 210 military units of chemical engineering troops and air force were mobilized, totaling about 340,000 enlisted men. About 2,500 medical doctors and 5,000 nurses were employed; about 400 special medical units were formed. In the construction of the "shelter," the sarcophagus, 10,000 workers were employed, 360,000 tons of concrete were used, about 500,000 metal constructions were erected. For the population evacuated from the zone, about 21,000 houses were built and 15,000 new apartments provided. In 1987 the construction of a new city for Chornobyl nuclear power plant personnel was initiated, and the city's population now is 26,000.

As a result of these unprecedented measures, the economic losses, even when calculated in very low Soviet prices, amounted to over $10 billion, and the indirect costs were $25 billion. Over recent years, the new independent Ukrainian state had to spend $800 million to $900 million per year to solve post-Chornobyl problems.

The fourth and maybe the most important peculiarity of Chornobyl is that this catastrophe raises, on an international scale, the problem of the internal stability of any state having nuclear power plants, as well as the problem of protecting such facilities from hostilities or terrorism. The possibility of a civil war should be eliminated in countries where nuclear plants are located. It is easy to imagine the consequences for mankind if there were nuclear plants in Bosnia, Chechnya, Tajikistan or other hot spots of the planet.

We believe it is high time to conclude a special international agreement that would proclaim as a crime against humanity any hostilities on the territory of countries having nuclear power plants, irrespective of the reasons or character of the conflict (whether it is an ethnic or religious one, a civil war or an invasion by a foreign country, etc.). It is also necessary to elaborate an effective mechanism for rapid reaction by U.N. forces or other international organizations in case of the initiation of armed conflict on territories where nuclear plants are located. Chornobyl's experience shows us how dangerous the destruction of a reactor is; at the time of the explosion, there were over 230 metric tons of nuclear fuel (uranium) in the reactor. According to official data, as a result of the accident over 90 million curies of radioactivity were released, though the real figures are much higher. Even now in the ruins of the fourth reactor (i.e., within the sarcophagus) 180 tons of nuclear fuel remain, including over 2.3 tons of uranium-235 and 700 kilograms of plutonium with general radioactivity of 20 million curies. I want to remind you that an atomic bomb of the Hiroshima type contained only 10 kilograms of plutonium.

Any hostilities, even those using conventional arms, pose the threat of a conflict turning into a nuclear war.

The fifth peculiarity is the involvement in the catastrophe of large population masses - first of all children, the presence of thousands of environmental refugees, long-term contamination of soil and water, and irreversible changes in the natural environment and ecosystems.

By mid-August of 1986, in Ukraine over 90,000 people from 81 settlements were evacuated, in Belarus - 25,000 people from 107 settlements. From 1990 to 1995, due to the radiation conditions and because of social and psychological factors, 52,000 citizens of Ukraine, 106,000 citizens of Belarus and more than 46,000 people in Russia were resettled. According to the latest data, as a result of the accident 50,500 square kilometers of Ukraine's territory, with a population of 2.4 million in 2,218 settlements, were contaminated.

A dead zone has formed around the Chornobyl NPP, covering an area of 2,044 square kilometers, encompassing two cities and 74 villages.

The sixth peculiarity of Chornobyl is the presence of considerable social, psychological and medical consequences. Despite the fact that a relatively small number of people died immediately after the accident (31 persons died of acute radiation sickness, as compared to hundreds during the chemical disaster in the Indian city of Bhopal), the long-term consequences are grave and cause great tension in the work of state agencies and medical services of Ukraine. For example, 5,000 people have lost the ability to work. The sickness of 30,000 so-called "liquidators" is officially attributed to the aftermath of the catastrophe. According to the Greenpeace Ukraine organization, over 32,000 people died as a result of the accident. The population mortality in the most affected regions increased by 15.7 percent as compared to the pre-accident period.

A group of Kyiv researchers (S. Komissarenko et. al., 1994) has conducted a medical survey of a group of liquidators and has found that the majority of these people have chronic fatigue syndrome accompanied by depression of a certain subclass of lymphocytes, the so-called natural killer cells that have the power to kill the cells of tumors or virus-infected cells. These defects of the natural immune system were named "Chornobyl AIDS"; in the short term, this could cause an increased rate in leukemias and malignant tumors, and makes a person more susceptible to "normal infections," like bronchitis, tonsillitis, pneumonia, etc., which last longer and acquire grave clinical forms.

In contaminated regions of Ukraine and Belarus there was a sharp increase (by 10 times) of thyroid cancer morbidity. Chornobyl has given rise to a psychological syndrome comparable to that suffered by veterans of wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Among children evacuated from the zone there has been a 10- to 15-fold increase in the incidence of neuro-psychiatric disorders.

Immediately after the accident, on the orders of the Communist Party, a real political and propagandist battle in interpreting the possible medical consequences of Chornobyl was begun. The official representatives of Soviet medicine, as well as some representatives of the nuclear industry complex in the West, tried to deny any consequences of Chornobyl for human health. For that these people were nicknamed "Chornobyl nightingales," i.e., extreme optimists. On the other hand, there were "black pessimists" who forecast the death of nearly the entire Ukrainian nation.

The truth is that the medical consequences are undoubtedly there, but taking into account the exceptional complexity, the multitude of factors and the durability of Chornobyl's aftermath, today it is very difficult to give a final quantitative estimate. This explains huge discrepancies in data about deaths caused by the accident that are cited by authors from different organizations. At the same time, however, it is immoral to deny serious medical consequences for the health of people in Ukraine and Belarus, such as have appeared recently in some respectable Western publications. This could be compared to publications in anti-Semitic newspapers stating there where no gas chambers in Auschwitz, or no Nazi crimes at Babyn Yar.

An important seventh peculiarity of Chornobyl is that, even after 10 years, it still requires the close attention of the international community. The world at large must finally comprehend that Chornobyl is not an internal affair of Ukraine.

The closure of the plant means the loss of at least 7 percent of electricity produced at the time of an energy shortage, as well as the possible loss of 5,000 jobs. The estimated costs of the shutdown, including the creation of new energy sources and social protection for the personnel, are $4.4 billion (U.S.).

The building of a new sarcophagus will require approximately $1.5 billion. Ukraine and the G-7 countries last December signed a formal agreement on a cooperative plan to shut down the whole Chornobyl plant by the year 2000. The agreement establishes that the European Union and the U.S. will help Ukraine devise plans to mitigate the effects of the shutdown on local populations. It also sets up mechanisms to allow donor countries to expedite safety improvements at the reactors still in use. In addition, the agreement provides for international cooperation in decommissioning the plant, as well as in the biggest problem of all: an ecologically sound, long-term replacement for the sarcophagus that was built around the ruins of reactor No. 4.

Dear friends! Perhaps the most tragic peculiarity of Chornobyl is that mankind has yet to fully understand the dramatic consequences of the accident and the warnings it brings.

Chornobyl must teach the nations of the world a dreadful lesson in preparedness if we are to rely on superpowerful and hyperdangerous nuclear technology. Humankind lost a sort of innocence on April 26, 1986. We entered a new post-Chornobyl era, and we have yet to realize all the consequences.

Let God, our Lord, save mankind from new Chornobyls.

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